Out of the ashes of what the press made out to be a bitter feud over the tracklisting for their last album – Animal/Not Animal – Richard Edwards and his band, Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s have emerged with their latest effort – Buzzard. The album is a powerful, stripped down, less orchestrated version of the band that was mostly recorded in an abandoned movie theater in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village.

REAX caught up with a very thoughtful Edwards as the band drove through Pennsylvania en route to a Washington D.C. show at the Black Cat. What started out as a typical conversation about losing band members, touring, and the new album turned into a discussion about the disadvantages and benefits of major label life, the perils in the Internet age, and how much people should actually pay for music.

Check it out below, then come out to Crowbar on this Friday, October 8, when Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s take the stage. The Lonely Forest, Sleepy Vikings, and Cameron McGill and What Army play support. Tickets are only $12 and doors are at 9 p.m. for this all ages show.

REAX: How are you?
Richard Edwards of Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s: Not too bad, just driving to D.C.

REAX: You’re about two weeks into the tour. How is the audience responding to the new stuff when you play it on stage?
Edwards: The response has been really good. The shows have been great so it’s been really fun so far.

REAX: I wanted to discuss the new record and how you recorded it. How did you end up finding, renting, and living in that old movie theater in Chicago?
Edwards: Well, I didn’t rent it. I found it through some friends, and I just kind of squatted there myself. It no longer shows any kind of movies officially, but we put up a big bed sheet with a projector and watched certain things on it. So I just kind of randomly came across it and did some recording there.

REAX: You didn’t know that you were gonna live up there when you moved up to Chicago right? Was it like you didn’t have a clue where you were going to live when you were relocating there?
Edwards: No, I had a place when I left. I had an apartment, but I left the apartment to kind of bounce around. I’m a little too old to just go somewhere without a place to stay at this point.

REAX: Were you ever a drifter kid?
Edwards: I don’t know. I tour, so I drift around a lot. You get to a certain age and the romance of it goes away, but I’m still traveling around the same as I ever did and I enjoy that. I enjoy being in different cities all the time – I enjoy moving around. But you get older and other stuff is going on too.

REAX: It’s funny how getting older sometimes causes things to lose the luster they had when you were younger.
Edwards: Yeah, it’s very strange, but hopefully you replace that with common sense, and that’s a good thing too.

REAX: Do you ever have trouble finding a balance between keeping your ideals and living as you grow older and develop common sense and practicality?
Edwards: No, I’m not too worried about that very often. I feel like I’m pretty crazy – I’m not gonna have much trouble as I age finding motivation to do whatever. You know, I don’t have to go overnight and sleep in Central Park just to write a song. I can go overnight and sleep in a bed or a cot and be just fine.

REAX: Speaking of the muse and things like that, a press release says that you had a rule that said there was no artificial light allowed in the theater when you recorded (between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.). How true is that?
Edwards: It’s totally true. We used candles and stuff. Now, when we did certain little overdub things and had somebody else come in, we weren’t gonna say, “Oh yeah, you can’t come in until 1:30 a.m.” That wouldn’t be very respectful or smart. So, it wasn’t like a firm dogma necessarily, but we tried to do as much of that as we could.

But it wasn’t the first time we recorded like this. The first record The Dust of Retreat was recorded, probably, from 11 p.m. until early in the morning. Just sneaking in the studio we had to get in when they were gone and had to get out before they came back. So, it’s true, but we’ve always recorded records in kind of fucked up ways because of finances or night owl tendencies anyway.

REAX: So you snuck around recording that record?
(Silence)
Edwards: Hey, were driving through Pennsylvania, so I apologize for it cutting out.



REAX: No worries, the press release also said that three musicians broke bones from walking around in the dark. Is it as extreme as it sounds, and if it is, do you think – in hindsight – that the dark rule was kind of overboard, or do you think it helped the overall vibe of the record? The record is easier to get lost in during the wee hours of the night.
Edwards: I think that anytime you change up the atmosphere that you’re recording in, it makes an incredible effect on the sound of the record. I think that a record recorded with neon lights is going to sound completely different from a record recorded by candlelight. As far as the bones breaking, it’s just one guy – the engineer, and he’s proud of that – and I think it was just a wrist or an ankle, nothing that’s gonna ruin their lives.

I think that setting up a situation to record in that’s just different and feels moody in the right way is incredibly important. I think it makes as much as a difference as what kind of tape machines or amps you use – I think it’s a big part of what you’re doing.

REAX: Shedding a few members of the band obviously streamlines the recording process, but did it make it easier to be moodier on the record?
Edwards: Yeah, um, I think that was definitely true. With less people, you have less peoples’ feelings to worry about. You don’t have to put shit on a song that you don’t think goes there. Everything in the studio is really immediate – there’s no committee. I much prefer this way of recording. You know, it’s you and maybe a couple of people who are really in charge of making sure this thing is whatever you want it to be. So, I couldn’t be happier in terms of the recording situation and the working relationships that we have now.

REAX: The way you talk about it, and the way the record sounds, it seems like you like it a lot. You talked bout bruising other band member’s feelings when you told them that they wouldn’t be needed for Buzzard. Looking back on it, would you do it differently in terms of living in such close proximity with each other?
Edwards: No, I wouldn’t do it any differently. I think it was great. We never fought, you know, it was just one of these things that runs its course. I wanted to do something different. The response we’ve got from this has been super positive, but even if it hadn’t been, you know, I could give a shit. I wanted to record like that then, and I want to record like this now, you know?

I really loved living with all those guys, and I loved traveling with them and everything like that, but when it feels like it’s done you gotta move on. You can’t hold on to stuff longer than it feels right to do it, you know? So, I don’t know – there’s stuff about that that I miss for sure, but you have to try to keep moving towards whatever you feel like you’re supposed to be doing at the time.

REAX: With that being said, is there a song that means the most to you now that you’ve been able to tour and live in the songs a bit more?
Edwards: I like “Birds,” the first song on the record I think is probably one of the best songs that I’ve written; I like the song called “Claws Off” a lot. I don’t know, I’m fond of this one so far; I guess there are a lot of songs that I feel good about. It’s pretty much exactly what I wanted to make. So far, I like it, I’m pretty sure that in a year, that’ll change, but you know.

REAX: You said something about Sony/Epic, and I wanted to get clarification on that. You said that you didn’t think Sony was going to be this long leg of your career and that you would “get in and out before they knew what hit them.” What did you mean by that exactly.
Edwards: Well, there was a guy who ran V2 when we were on it and when he went over to Epic after V2 collapsed he basically said, “Look I’m gonna have a bunch of money to work with. Do you want to come over here and make a record?” There were already a bunch of fans of ours when we went over there, so we went over there and they wrote checks for the studio – a recording process that we could never afford in a billion years, that we’ll never be able to afford again – and then he got fired.

I guess that’s what I meant. You know that anyone over there that you have a relationship with is not going to be there very long because labels aren’t run by smart people, you know? They hire dish soap execs – they’re just not very bright – so when you find a couple bright people with ideas, it’s a pretty good idea that they’re not gonna be there long because brains and any kind of ideas aren’t exactly what those kind of companies are looking for. I think that we knew that once these one or two people were gone, that we were gonna be gone. It lasted a little bit longer than that because they ended up hiring another president that, I guess, liked the band.

I guess that’s what we meant. We thought we could go in, get a record made with a budget that we’ll never get again. And that’s an exciting prospect, and then whatever. When we leave, it won’t be any big deal because we can just do another record the same way we did the one before. We never had this – maybe it was a mistake – career ambition where we were gonna become the next Death Cab For Cutie or anything like that, you know? We just wanted to make records and get by financially, squeak by as best we could.

REAX: Do you think you made the most of your opportunity there? Do you think you made the most of the time you had in the studio?
Edwards: Absolutely. Yeah, I mean those records didn’t go over that well – this one’s gone over much better, but at the same time I don’t think any of us regret what we did because that’s always what we’ve been taught, and that’s what we believe in.

If you get the opportunity to take a big company’s money, you take it and you use it to make exactly what you wanna make. You try to make something grand and big that you couldn’t afford to make yourself – and that’s what we were trying to do, you know? We worked for four months on those records and geeked out over orchestration and really tried to make this beautiful kind of almost film music – not even a rock, indie rock record, so I’ll always have really fond memories of that. It’s really, really fun to work on this big orchestration like that. It’s super fun.

It was great. It was a great memory. I don’t know if I’d want to do it again, that’s necessarily what I’m interested in right now, but it was super, super fun and I’d could never complain about having four months in a studio to really go for it, you know. I would be an idiot to if I complained about that.



REAX: You were talking about ambition and not wanting to be the next big, indie, Death Cab For Cutie type band. Do you feel like some bands get blinded by that and give into the label? Is that why you butted heads with Epic over the tracklisting for Animal/Not Animal? Because you were so proud of the record and unwilling to fold to the label?

Edwards: Yeah, I think it was that and I think the other side of it was a very healthy understanding that it doesn’t matter what we do. Just because we say, “Okay, you guys can sequence the record,” and “We were wrong – don’t put our (version) out” doesn’t mean that these people are gonna make you a superstar, and I think that’s what these people don’t understand with these labels. They think that if you play ball all day long, that it’s just gonna happen for you, and it’s not. These people jerk you around as much as they possibly can, and the reason we didn’t get jerked around on that label is because they knew they couldn’t jerk us around. They were either going to have to drop us or give into certain things.

And if you start any sort of professional relationship where people know they’ve got you over the coals, then they’re gonna continue to that because it’s in their interest to do it. When it comes to the tracklisting, I think the thought was, “Look, you guys gave us money. You didn’t check in while we were in the studio. We made what the fuck we wanted to make, so get lost. Don’t come in here four months later and say, “We don’t hear a single.” It’s like, “no shit, you don’t hear a single.”

They’re really not the smartest people that are running these things, and you realize that when you go there, but it’s fine. I think all that we cared about is that this thing exists in the world, and if people want to pick it up and find things they love, great, if not, that’s okay too, but at least it exists. It didn’t really matter because they really didn’t market our record. They paid for it, they pressed it on vinyl, and that’s more than we could’ve done at the time, you know. If they didn’t wanna market it, if they didn’t think it was sellable, then that’s fine, whatever.

REAX: I think it worked out for you. I think that period of your career found you in a growth period and being exposed to more people, setting you up for the rest of your career.
Edwards: Yeah, maybe, I’m not sure. I guess that’s always the goal when people sign to majors. That hopefully, even if it doesn’t go well you get a little bit out of it. I’m not sure if we did or didn’t – like I said, those records didn’t exactly set the world on fire, but the press on Buzzard has been a lot better so it feels like this tour and record has kind of recaptured a certain momentum that I think we lost during that process, you know.

REAX: It’s kind of cool that you can look past that now. You were talking about wanting to get by just making records. I was reading your Twitter feed, and you re-tweeted something someone said about hating hearing you in a Starbucks because she hated hearing groups she loves “going mainstream.” It seems like some people can’t imagine that artists also have to pay the bills. What’s your take on the whole “art vs. commerce” thing and the way they play off each other? Is there a line that you won’t cross or anything like that? I mean it’s not like you’re on TV selling Bubblicious gum or something.

Edwards: I’m not sure that kids understand that just because they hear your song in a store that it means anyone’s making any money off of it, or that you gave them permission to do it. Sometimes some kid is playing his or her own record collection.

I used to be adamant against commercials, and I still find them incredibly creepy, but I can’t say that I wouldn’t do it because I’ve got a family, and there’s less and less of those lines now, that people are almost resigned to the fact that you’re never gonna make a dime on any record you’re gonna make.

It’s hard to fault people these days. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have music fans scream for integrity and not selling out, and also not buying the records that these people make you know?

REAX: There’s a big debate going on now about how much you should pay for music. It seems like people are just stealing music nowadays – it’s pretty rampant. Do you feel like it is a little bit out of control, and that there needs to be a new method? I can sense your aversion to big labels and they way they handle things like that, but is there a way for artists to still make a little bit of money off their records, or is moving into to just touring to make any kind of money?
Edwards: You know, I don’t know. It’s absolutely very, very tough right now. It’s very hard. I’m not even someone who is anti-downloading; I understand why it’s done. My only problem with that is that I think that at some point, if you’re gonna download music – which everyone has, I’ve downloaded things – but you can’t tell a kid that they can’t listen to a record or can’t watch a movie because they can’t afford it – there’s too much of that now, and it’s not fair – but when you find those five or ten things every month that you love, that you go back to…I feel like your obligated to support it in a certain way. That’s kind of how I feel personally. If it’s something that I’m going back to, then I need to go support it, I need to buy it.

As rampant as it is, and as tough as it is on bands our size: It helps and it hurts, for sure – you get music out, but you don’t make back the investment. There’s still companies making billions of dollars on this technology on the Internet, you know, and flaunting it. When the RIAA sues you for running Napster or something, they’re still walking out of the deal with millions of dollars – they’re still selling ads. These companies are profiting on this stuff and they don’t have any interest in seeing the artist get paid, so I think that the problem is more with these fucking Internet companies who are providing the tools to do this stuff.

It’s not the kid that wants to hear the record. It’s the companies that are getting billion of dollars from the subscribers. Even YouTube – it’s a great thing, but at the same time…What a great scheme to come up with a brilliant method of transporting stuff without having to pay fees. With technology I think we’re starting to value the fork over the cut of meat – that’s depressing.

I’m not depressed about kids who want to hear music – that’s good. I’m depressed that these companies demonize kids when they’re still making shit tons of money, and they certainly aren’t in any hurry to send it back out to a band, or filmmaker, or author whose work is being distributed.

I don’t know. I think with all this stuff, I think it’s a little more systematic. I don’t think it’s ever as easy as “these punk kids are downloading.” That’s a little too easy. I think it goes a little further than that, I don’t think that’s the problem, but what do I know?

REAX: That is something to grapple with. How much is someone supposed to pay? Who is supposed to pay, etc.
Edwards: Well, the best thing they could do is set up something like Netflix or something to try to get people to spend a certain amount of money a month to get a certain amount of free downloads or records. I think the days of asking kids to buy each and every record they want to hear are long gone, you know? There’s just too much music, and it’s too easy to get it.

REAX: Well, that was pretty substantial, I don’t really want to water it down with another question. Is there anything you’re looking forward to coming to Florida?
Edwards: Yeah, I’m excited to see the beach.

REAX: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us.
Edwards: We’ll talk to you soon.